Did Ahmadinejad really say Israel should be ‘wiped off the map’?

The Fact Checker, WashPost
By Glenn Kessler

(Associated Press)

“Israel, a small country of less than eight million people, looks out at a world where leaders of much larger nations threaten to wipe it off of the map.” — President Obama, speech to the U.N. General Assembly, September 21, 2011

“It was only perhaps three weeks ago that the president of Iran once again said that Israel should be eradicated off the face of the Earth. As you recall, it was about in 2005 when he [Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] said before that Israel — he would use a nuclear weapon to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth.” — Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), September 19, 2011

“Outrageous statements by Ahmadinejad, such as a pledge to wipe Israel off the map, made it easier to keep that coalition together. Germany had been considered the weak sister of the group, but after Ahmadinejad’s comments about Israel, the historical burden of the Holocaust made it difficult for Germany to appear too sympathetic to Iran.” — Glenn Kessler (aka The Fact Checker), "The Confidante: Condoleezza Rice and the Creation of the Bush Legacy" (St. Martin’s Press, 2007), page 188.

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